At the same time that Greece Prime Minister was visiting, European Parliament voted in favour of twelve pages of regulation with as goal a zero waste programme for Europe. Most importantly, households would be forced to recycle 70 per cent of their rubbish. Fines could be levied on those communities which fail to do so.… » read more

After the Second World War it became clear that several European countries had failed to meet their defence tasks in the years before this war unfolded. In the Netherlands a broad consensus emerged that it was necessary to increase the level of defence spending. In the beginning of the fifties the share of defence in… » read more

In many countries occupational plans are being reformed from Defined-Benefit (DB) to Defined-Contribution (DC) designs. In a Netspar discussion paper Lans Bovenberg and I explore the case of the Netherlands, which features a particularly high ratio of occupational pension assets to GDP. Most occupational schemes are DB-funded and the value of assets in these schemes… » read more

The Dutch and Spanish seaports are very important for their economy. In 2011, the added value of the Dutch logistic sector was 40 billion euro (8% of its GDP) and the number of employees working in this sector is 750.000 (10% of the labor force). Spain is the European country with the greatest length of… » read more

In the 1980s and 1990s, disability benefit rates in the Netherlands were among the highest in the world. In 2002 the number of disability benefit recipients approached the political sensitive level of one million, 800,000 of which in the employees’ scheme. When the inflow rates at that time would have been continued into the future,… » read more

A single European labour market will have positive economic effects and create new jobs. In this respect, the Single Market Act as proposed by commissioner Barnier is an important step towards an competitive social market economy. Also in this context, a new trade agreement between EU and USA will be important as well. In this… » read more

In his last NYT column Paul Krugman discussed the current Dutch debate on austerity. According to estimates in February additional cuts of 4 billion euro (0.7% GDP) are necessary to reach the Maastricht criteria of 3% in 2014. He stated that these new deficit cuts are unnecessary and will hurt the Dutch economy furthermore. He… » read more

One of the promises of privatisation was that it reduces the costs of public delivery. Governments may have various reasons to contract out their service deliveries to the private sector. Private contractors possess advantages over public organisations as they have a stronger focus on results because of the competition among suppliers, the necessity to earn… » read more

In recent years there was a large deterioration of Dutch public finance. As for previous years, for 2009 a balanced budget was foreseen in the budget plan that was presented just before Lehman Brothers fell. The 2009-budget also foresaw a reduction of the public debt/GDP ratio to 38 percent, the lowest level in 35 years.… » read more

In the Netherlands, a committee led by NIBC-CFO van Dijkhuizen (CvD) advises to take an integrated approach to reform the tax system. It proposes a more flatter rate of income tax and, thereby, a better functioning labour market. Moreover, it reduces mortgage interest deduction and thereby decreasing the vulnerability of the economy to rising interest… » read more

Social security, public administration, industrial organization and applied public economics

About: Raymond Gradus

Raymond Gradus (r.h.j.m.gradus@vu.nl) is professor of Public Economics and Administration at VU University Amsterdam. In addition, he is a fellow of Netspar (Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement) and Talma Institute for Work, Care and Welfare. He was Director of the Research institute for the CDA. He was also affiliated at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tilburg University and at the different Ministries. His research interests are public administration, industrial organization, social security and applied public economics as infrastructure.